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A European Unitary Patent (EUP) – officially known as a European patent with unitary effect – is the result of the validation of a European patent granted under the European Patent Convention (EPC) as a unitary patent at the European Patent Office. This requires an application for unitary effect to be submitted after the European patent has been granted. The unitary patent provides uniform patent protection in those member states of the European Union (EU) that participate in enhanced cooperation and that have ratified the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA) at that time. These are currently the following EU states, marked in dark blue on the map:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden.

A European unitary patent provides uniform patent protection in all the above-mentioned states. It can be enforced in a single infringement action before the Unified Patent Court of the European Union (UPC) with effect for all participating states, but it can also be challenged in a single nullity action. The advantage of uniform enforceability – compared to the classic European patent – is juxtaposed with the disadvantage of the joint loss of the patent in the event of a nullity declaration – according to the motto “all eggs in one basket”. Another advantage of the unitary patent is the lower cost of validation because no foreign representatives have to be involved in the EU states concerned and because translation costs are significantly reduced. The annual renewal fees to be paid are also lower than the sum of the respective national annual fees.